With more and more digital images, video and multimedia content being created, people want to be able to access this content using more types of devices, including cell phones, PDAs, notebook computers, laptop computers, and other mobile devices, as well as non-mobile devices such as desktop computers, work stations, and other devices having or in communication with a monitor of some sort. With regard to mobile devices, it is challenging to browse video on small wireless mobile devices such as PDAs and cell phones. Typically, the small screen restricts how much content can be displayed.
Existing techniques for visualizing video summaries are not designed for small screens and do not work well on them. As a result, visual summaries typically do not work well on smaller screens, such as these found on mobile devices. One popular method is to use a storyboard with a number of important key frames extracted from the video using content analysis algorithms. An example of a storyboard display is illustrated in FIG. 1. The layout may have same-sized images or different-sized images. When viewed on a small screen, it is difficult to see what is in the images. What is needed is a system and method for extracting video regions of interest from video clips that overcomes the shortcomings and disadvantages of the prior art.